[wwgreen]

I have recently moved from 1.3.4 to 2.2.2 and still learning. I would like CS-Cart to be our main site, not just a cart, so wondering if this is possible before I go any further :

1) For the Top Menu, list things like Home, Contact, Location, News... stuff like that, and at the end, Shop.
2) For all items included in top menu, have no sidebars and just general content, but...
3) for Shop, have it then display all necessary items for shopping in the sidebars, like categories, account info, etc.

In limited playing around with pages, blocks, etc., I can manage doing 1 and 2 above, but not sure how to do 3. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[tbirnseth]

You could modify main.tpl to NOT dispaly the left and right columns if the the URL was index.php only. You would do this by adding (somewhere near the top) by:

{if $controller == 'index' && $mode == ''}
  {assign var="left" value=""}
  {assign var="right" value=""}
{if}

The other option is to do basically the same thing with a php 'post' controller for 'index' (setting the template variable left and right to empty strings if there is no mode and controller is index).

[wwgreen]

Thanks, tb. Not sure I understand completely, but I'll try and see.

So, it's not possible to assign each "page" I add with it's own layout? Not sure if I'm explaining this well. For example, I see in blocks where you can customize things like Pages (which accomplishes 1 and 2), but how can I make a "Shop" tab like Pages that I can customize?

Thanks again!

[jabman]

Just disable the blocks for the left and right columns.

Log in to Admin > go to Design > Blocks. Select Pages then click on the Active field and select Disable for both 'Right Column' and 'Left Column'. Now only the 'Central Column' will be active and will span the content width.

[wwgreen]

Just disable the blocks for the left and right columns.

Log in to Admin > go to Design > Blocks. Select Pages then click on the Active field and select Disable for both 'Right Column' and 'Left Column'. Now only the 'Central Column' will be active and will span the content width.

Right jabman, thanks. That accomplishes the look I want for all "regular pages" and top menu/tabs I create like Home, Contact, Location, News, Specials, etc. That is what I have done so far.

But then, for a Shop top menu/tab, how can I have everything within that menu load/display the usual cart appearance with sidebars, account, signin, categories, products, cart, etc. ?

Thanks again for your time everyone...

[tbirnseth]

I thought you were talking about the homepage of your site and that you wanted it to appear differently depending on whether someone had chosen to "Shop" or not. I have no idea what they get when they land there orginally but what I was trying to suggest was a way to disable the sideboxes when certain conditions were met.

Maybe you should just do a standard html index.html file and then uses that theme in customizing your store header/theme which you would then install in a sub-directory.

[tbirnseth]

I thought you were talking about the homepage of your site and that you wanted it to appear differently depending on whether someone had chosen to "Shop" or not. I have no idea what they get when they land there originally but what I was trying to suggest was a way to disable the sideboxes when certain conditions were met. What those conditions are is up to you....

[jabman]

But then, for a Shop top menu/tab, how can I have everything within that menu load/display the usual cart appearance with sidebars, account, signin, categories, products, cart, etc. ?

Take a closer look at the blocks. You can turn on/off columns and individual blocks on All Pages, Product pages, Categories, Homepage, Pages (which I addressed), Checkout, Cart etc...

With the block editor you should be able to achieve all of your desired layout(s).

[johnbol1]

John Carrol has listed a css drop down mega menu on the forums somewhere, this will allow all of your content to be displayed in the top bar.

John

[JohnCarroll]

see this link for the menu: http://forum.cs-cart...155#entry106155

John

[wwgreen]

Thank you all for your replies. I think I'm making it work the more I learn about how the cart works and what index.php does. An update if interested...

Currently listed in the top menu tabs are Home | Contact | Location | News | Specials | Shop with appropriate dropdown menus/pages also.

For Home through Specials, I'll create regular pages that do not have the typical cart sidebars. Understood, that can be done with blocks. For Shop, I want to keep the cart operating as CS intended, so I'll have it direct/link to index.php which is still the "starting point" to browse products, and will include all of the cart sidebars (I hope) from then on for those shopping, again, done with blocks.

Problems I see then are 1) I need to have engines index Home through Specials and make sure visitors land there correctly (not to index.php or shopping "area"), 2) I need to have the usual products and shopping info indexed and make sure visitors land correctly within the shopping "area" of our site (index.php, individual products, etc.). Can these two issues be done correctly/consistently within CS somehow, or should it be done with redirects on our server/cPanel?

Thanks again, just trying to see if CS will work for us. I know it's not intended to be a CMS, but currently we have our regular site on one domain, and CS on a subdomain... I would like to combine if not too confusing for the user.

[edit : problem 3) the breadcrumb "Home" is by default the shopping home from the cart, not the regular Home page I create. So anyone wanting to navigate or know where they on the site will likely get confused. I would like the breadcrumbs to be, for example, Home (regular page, not index.php) > Specials > Garden Center, or Home > Shop (index.php) > Gift Cards. See what I mean? Hope so, thanks again for any input!]

[tbirnseth]

Whether index.php or index.html is the default page can be set in your .htaccess file.
The search engines will follow your link if it's not disallowed by either a 'rel="nofollow"' attribute within the anchor tag or from robots.txt Disallowing it in your robots.txt file in root directory of your site.

I believe you've chosen the best approach based on what you described initially about what you wanted to achieve. It keeps everything in the cart standard and simply adds a landing page for your site without impacting your store.

[wwgreen]

Thanks again, tb, much appreciated from this rookie. Yes, trying to keep things as stock as possible for future upgrades.

I will play with htaccess for the shopping and regular "home" pages. Any ideas on the breadcrumbs issue and how to make CS force the breadcrumb "Home" to be my regular home and not the cart? Or can that be done in .htaccess as well?

[tbirnseth]

You can set your Home to just be your domain name which would then do whatever .htaccess has defined as the default file to load.

[wwgreen]

Thanks again, I think I can manage.

Not sure what command to use in htaccess, but I can read up on that. Also not sure what will happen when I get CS working right and eventually move the installation to www.ourdomain.com (currently installed and testing at shop.ourdomain.com/shopfolder). ? Still a little confused what files CS will call and when.

[edit : for now, until I move everything to www.ourdomain.com, I have commented out breadcrumbs in main.tpl, and put a redirect on our server for shop.ourdomain.com to go to the "regular" Home page I created. Seems to work like I want, even if it's not the right way or most efficient. I'll tweak if I have to when it's all done and moved. THANK YOU ALL AGAIN for now... always appreciate any other advice.]

[wwgreen]

One more post before I give it a rest already, still having issues if anyone is still interested and can give advice.

Basically, if there is some way I can get rid of the search bar, mini cart, checkout button, and signup/register buttons from displaying in every "regular page" I create (Home | Contact | Location | etc), CS would be perfect. There doesn't seem to be a way to work with these components in blocks to disable or at least move them to the sidebars and out of the way, and if I hard-code/comment them out of whatever templates, they aren't there for when people are using the | Shop | or other cart pages.

Any thoughts while still keeping the installation mostly stock for future upgrades? Or am I missing something simple? Thanks again for any help.

[tbirnseth]

Now you're back to conditional inclusion in templates.

Me thinks you need to hire a developer who can implement what you want as long as you know what you want.

[wwgreen]

Yep, tb, I know.

One last idea, what if I had two identical installations (even if another license needs to be bought), one in www.ourdomain.com, and one in shop.ourdomain.com subdomain.

In www., I would put all "regular" pages and set them up without any cart components. The | Shop | top menu tab would then only be a link to the shop. domain.

In shop., just the opposite. The Home | Contact | Location | etc. top menu items would be links only directing back to www. pages, with the rest of the script setup for shopping, categories, checkout, etc.

Pros as far as I know would be 1) that it would do what I want, 2) regular pages get edited through www. login and products and cart would be edited with shop. login... fairly simple.

Cons would be 1) two installations to keep updated, 2) two installations to keep consistent in appearance so any changes in one would need to be made in the other, 3) problems trying to use one database?, 4) any other surprises I am not thinking of.

?

[tbirnseth]

I would do what's called a "use case" (Google it to find out about it) and then work with a developer who can make this happen for you. 2 sites/licenses is overkill.

[wwgreen]

tb,

Understood. Just a simple garden center we run, and wanting to know what CS could do. Not worthwhile investing huge amounts of money into it when other solutions are available, I just like CS, wanted to keep it fairly stock, and didn't want to go with something like Wordpress/Joomla/etc... will likely not go back to those again...

Thanks again for all your help. I may run with it like I described in #15, and wait for a future multi-store add-on/version or the ability to put more components in blocks for customizing (not sure why this isn't available already?).